


Time Is An Illusion

by xama



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Time Travel, except not really, you know the drill
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-05-20 01:32:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14885097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xama/pseuds/xama
Summary: George Weasley - Business Tycoon, 1-Eared Wonder, Father, Husband, Brother. However, despite all his titles he still considered himself a prankster first. He may not have gotten to the past on purpose, but he was there, so he might as well start pranking and think about the repercussions later. Or never. Also he'd try to make Harry's life a little easier, poor guy barely smiled until he started taking care of Teddy.The Wizarding World changes almost the moment he arrives.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote most of the chapter thinking I could wait to reveal who the time traveller was but I kinda... forgot the way AO3 works. Could've worded the summary differently, could've waited till I had more scenes written featuring other characters, but I didn't.

Professor Albus Dumbledore sat back in his chair looking positively flabbergasted, concerned, sad but also disappointed, and at the same time relieved and perhaps amused. At least, that’s what his mysterious visitor chose to believe. Either that or the look on the old man’s face was arousal, in which case the visitor would remind the older man of their age difference. Really, a 160-year-old pursuing someone almost 30 years younger than him, the nerve.

Dumbledore looked at the diary that his visitor had brought before him, with which he had just had a rather enlightening conversation. “So, everything you told me last Tuesday, about the Horcruxes, about Sirius Black, and my own death, it truly was not an elaborate prank...”

“Really, Professor, would I do that to you?”

Albus looked at his visitor flatly, and raised an eyebrow. His visitor raised an eyebrow in response, and Albus raised his other eyebrow. The visitor upped the ante by not only raising his second eyebrow, but by spontaneously growing a third, and raising it as well.

“...I was under the impression that Nymphadora Tonks was the only Metamorphmagus in Britain.”

“Oh don’t worry, she is.”

Dumbledore didn’t have the decency to look concerned, like almost anyone else would. “So Voldemort made three Horcruxes-”

“To his knowledge.”

“To your knowledge, yes, an-”

“No, no, to _his_ knowledge he only made three, to my knowledge.”

“...Pardon me?” Queried the older, perhaps wiser man.

“You see, on Halloween-yes, That Halloween, he… left a present.”

Albus paled. “You don’t mean-”

“Yeah” His visitor grimaced.

“Oh… Oh, that poor boy, I had suspected something was amiss, but nothing like this...” Dumbledore… well, he couldn’t look much older than he already did, but he suddenly looked a lot more world-weary.

“I understand this is a horrifying bit of news, but could we stop talking in expressions? My mum always said that if I made a face long enough it would stick, and I’d rather not tempt fate and lose my eclectic repertoire of unique and grotesque facial expressions.”

Albus sighed and nodded acquiescence.

“So, Harry’s little problem, I actually have a few ideas on how to deal with that, you want to take a look?”

Albus gestured his visitor to continue, and they turned over and produced a roll of parchment. A rather large roll of parchment. “Oh dear.”

“Oh don’t worry, these are only the ones that are most likely to work, if they don’t I have three more scrolls of a similar size that were deemed untenable.”

“Untenable? Dare I ask by whom?”

“Oh, myself.”

Albus masked a groan, for he knew the person in front of him. He did not know how their mind worked – the mind was a wondrous thing, different for everyone, of course, this person’s especially so – but he knew enough to fear what even they would deem untenable.

“Don’t worry, the first one is actually really likely to work.”

Albus held out his hands, and the scroll was transferred to him much like one would transfer a small baby. He held it in his arms for a moment, remembering how Hagrid had briefly held young Harry on that Halloween almost 9 years ago. Then he gently unfurled it, expecting the first item on the list to be some sort of detailed ritual, perhaps requiring the sacrifice of many infant goats, and raised his eyebrows. “’Get him to touch his own scar’?” He asked, somewhat skeptical.

“Yeah.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“Nah.”

Dumbledore sighed “Very well, let me see… Excuse me?!”

“The second one?”

“No, I believe I understand that one, although I will admit that I have no idea how one would go about brewing non-lethal basilisk venom ointment.”

“With venom from a non-lethal basilisk, of course! But what bothers you? Number 5, number 6?”

“No no, I will admit that number 5 is a bit of stretch, but momentary fear and lifelong trauma and trust issues are far better than death, and number 6 is implausible because there is no singular ‘Goblin Nation’, and frankly I do not believe there is enough gold in Atlantis to bribe them to ‘cleanse the taint of Lord Voldemort’ as you eloquently put it. My concern is number 7.”

Dumbledore’s visitor looked surprised, “That one? What’s so bad about it?”

“What’s not bad about it? It’s barbaric, it’s cruel, and perhaps the most dangerous one on here. I would not even consider this as a last resort, and this is the third one down?? What were you thinking, ‘bone of the father’, ‘flesh of a servant, willingly given, steeped in whale placenta’?! This is not just dark magic, this is completely despicable! It’s not even guaranteed to work, it relies on Lily’s protection in Tom to keep Harry alive, how would that even work?”

The visitor stared for a moment, then threw their head back and started laughing.

“Mr. Weasley, I do not believe that this is a laughing matter. Your proposal entails allowing a Death Eater to locate Tom’s cowering soul, luring them back to the Isles with a frankly deadly tournament, letting them endanger and then kidnap Harry to steal his blood, and then hinges on Harry escaping unscathed! That is not just improbable, that is practically impossible! We might as well send Harry to duel Tom wielding nothing but a banana transfigured into a wand!”

Weasley was now banging on Albus’ desk, struggling to breathe. Albus lifted the Scroll of Improbable Methods for Horcrux Removal out of his way, and then as realization hit, had to try very hard to keep from burying his face in the scroll. “...by your reaction, I would assume that that was how it happened the first time around?”

Something in Weasley’s pocket beeped, and he immediately sobered. He also stopped laughing. “Sorry about that, the drunkenness was a lingering effect from the retrieval of the diary. Drinking contest with an unusually robust house-elf, you know how it is.”

Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled, and so did his impressive liquor cabinet, although no-one saw it because it was cleverly hidden behind the portrait of the 5th Headmaster of Hogwarts, D.E. Mentor, who even now in a diluted, oily form oozed an aura of despair that made drinking one’s sorrows away seem a grand idea.

“I have to leave in a few minutes, I have a potion I need to check on, very important. But yes, that was what happened last time, and yeah it worked.”

“While I am glad that it worked, could the mastermind behind this plan really think of nothing better? Even your ‘non-lethal basilisk venom ointment’ is less likely to go wrong than this one.”

“In your defense, I think that Harry’s blood had already been stolen and used in the resurrection ritual before you hatched this plot.”

“...what.”

“Oh, look at the time, I have to go. Keep the scroll, and the diary, I’m sure you can handle two Horcruxes, I’ll get the other two, bye!” Weasley began the arduous process of standing up, taking care not to jostle anything in his pockets, or harm his back. As he stood at full height, he pointed a finger at Dumbledore.

“Remember these names: Quirinis Quirrel, Gilderoy Lockhart, Severus Snape. They may seem slimy, they may seem untrustworthy, vile, nasty, evil, and unable to take a joke, but if you have them at your back, Voldemort won’t be your biggest problem.”

Albus was amazed, “You trust them that much?”

The visitor nodded seriously as he stood from his chair, “Yes, and without the influence of those three professors the Harry Potter of my time would have been a completely different person.” With that, he simply disappeared, no tell-tale pop of apparition, no burst of flames from Phoenix transportation, just gone, leaving behind only his echoing words and the odor of spoiled doxy wings.

Outside of a shack that could be called “shotgun”, a white-haired man with flicks of red in his beard appeared with a faint buzzing sound, and muttered “...a happier one.”

 

* * *

 

 

THE PREVIOUS MONDAY

“HONEY, I’M HOOOOME!” He yelled to the empty room, in the ramshackle house that he thought was empty.

“...Arthur, is that you?” called an all too familiar voice.

He winced, and followed the voice. “Hi, Bilius.”

“Arthur, thank Merlin, I… think I’m dying!”

Oh. Oh no.

“Bilius, it’s alright! You probably just saw a black dog, there’s no Grimm out to get you!”

“Thank Merlin for that, I was really worried!”

...was it that easy?

“But I’m not as young as I used to be, and the healers say that since I came to them too late, my Dragon Pox is untreatable.”

...What.

“And I’ve been feeling an unusual chill in the Weasley Family Jewels, I think that disease I got in Panama has finally caught up to me.”

Huh. Maybe superstition wasn’t the only thing that killed him, last go-around.

“But you’re right, no spectre of Death’s ever killed a Weasley! Thank you, Arthur. I know I’ll get through this like I’ve gotten through everything else in life: without wearing any pants.

Shedding a tear at the wise words, ‘Arthur’ cared for Bilius as well as he could, heartened by the man’s feistiness, joking with him in a way that the real Arthur Weasley probably wouldn’t have, and not really looking like Arthur, what with the white hair and the long beard. Bilius didn’t notice, and that might have been an even bigger sign of impending doom than the Grimm, as he died a few hours later.

But his legend had not. “I’m sorry about this, Uncle Bilius, you always were my favorite relative. Well, aside from Fred, obviously. And my children, I suppose Angelina counts since I married her, and of course Harry married Ginny and he’s always had a special place in my heart and my funny bone, and really all my siblings ended up being treasured until they passed or I went back in time-you were my favorite uncle… I think you would have wanted this.”

Screwing his eyes shut, George Weasley severed his beard. Then he gave himself a bald spot, and proceeded to burn his entire supply of underwear – which amounted to one pair. He no longer needed it.

No, this world had no use for two George Weasleys. Well, maybe it did, but he’d much rather let there be a Bilius.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'Bilius' attends his first big family gathering since traveling through time, and it goes as well as could be expected given his preparations.

George pulled on his robe, not your average wizard’s robe but rather a monk’s robe, and grabbed a bottle of the potion that had just finished brewing. Nearly a month’s work, even with his improvements and shortcuts, and yet there was only enough liquid to fill 3 bottles. Unfortunately, George knew from experience that proportionately increasing the ingredients would not necessarily yield a larger amount of potion. Or even the right potion. Once he had tried to mass-brew polyjuice and had somehow ended up with bogey-flavored pepper-up.

Still, even in small amounts this potion was useful. George looked a little like Bilius, but he was thinner, shorter, and older. He had a reasonably good cover story, but he’d rather be safe than sorry. He popped off the stopper and chugged it.

Turning and spinning, he apparated to a remote Weasley property, owned by one of George’s less syphilitic uncles. First time around, Bilius Weasley had missed this particular event on the grounds that he had been dead for a month. In fact, his failure to show up was what prompted his brothers to check up on him.

Standing at the gates to Geoff Weasley’s property were a couple young cousins and a very young Bill. “Little Bilius, good to see you! No scars yet, I see.”

Bill turned around, grinning. “Uncle Bilius, I stopped believing that I was named after you when I was 11 and – blimey, what happened to you?”

‘Bilius’ shrugged, saying “Firewhiskey, a hag, a centaur and a fowl-tempered book, but nothing too bad.”

“...Uncle Bilius, you look like you aged two dozen years.”

“Oh, that - I played a game of gobstones with Death.”

Bill’s eyes widened, and behind him the assorted cousins snickered. Bilius’ oddness combined with a little Liquid Luck did wonders.

“Death, Uncle Bilius? Where’d you find him, the Hog’s Head?” Asked Phil Weasley – he moved to Australia after Dumbledore died, ended up running the WWW store in Melbourne – a good sense of humor but a limited backbone.

“Nah, he sent a Grimm after me, so I was prepared. He technically won, but in the process he damaged my home considerably, so as a reparation he offered to remove one fatal ailment for every decade he aged me.”

Charlie and Percy had joined the gaggle now, one holding back laughter and the other looking concerned and vaguely disapproving. Sensing a lecture from a thirteen-year old, ‘Bilius’ frantically gestured at Bill. If he stayed any longer, he’d have to hold back the urge to tease and antagonize Percy in a way that Bilius Weasley never had. Thankfully, Bill heeded his ‘Uncle’s’ gestures and led him to his seat.

“Bill, remind me again of who’s getting married?” George knew that someone was getting hitched, but he didn’t remember the name of the cousin and hadn’t really looked over the invitation.

“Darius Weasley and Jon Smith.”

“A Weasley marrying a Hufflepuff?”

“Oh no, he’s not from THAT Smith family, he’s a muggleborn.”

“That’s too bad, I could’ve had a nephew who knew the recipe to Helga Hufflepuff’s famous Alcoholic Felix Felicis.”

Bill pointed him at a chair in the second row – not nearly as many seats as there had been for his wedding or his siblings’ weddings, although that was understandable. This branch of the Weasley family was a little more private if George remembered correctly, and only invited family. That meant there were just over 200 guests, but Bill had had almost 400, and Ginny and Harry had had to declare common law because otherwise they were facing a wedding with over 2,000 assorted guests and well-wishers.

Eventually the ceremony started – pretty tame as far as these things went. The officiator was an unremarkable middle-aged witch. the grooms were obviously in love, there was a pair of obvious muggles in the front row among the Weasley groom’s immediate family that looked ecstatic at their son’s wedding, if a bit confused about all the magic and red hair around them, and Professor Sprout was tearing up somewhere behind him, one of the few non-Weasleys in attendance – Jon may not have been a Hufflepuff, but apparently he was a Hufflepuff.

The reception was standard, for a Weasley wedding. So there was a little bit of chaos, confused older relatives mistaking younger nephews and cousins as their kids, little Weaslys running about tripping dancers and stuffing dung bombs in their pockets – ickle first-year Fred winked at him while shoving a plastered gnome into the pocket of his new cousin, and Bilius winked back. And then downed his glass of firewhisky, making sure to show off his signature party move of pulling flowers from his nethers.

Apparently Professor Sprout appreciated his show, because she arranged a date with him for the following Wednesday – he also secured an invite for Sunday dinner from Arthur, and managed to avoid recognition from Bilius and Arthur’s parents, who were about as old as George actually was. If George remembered, the real Bilius had been around 80 – a couple decades older than his brother Arthur, who was actually the second oldest; Septimus and Cedrella were as odd as any Weasley, George supposed. Or rather Bilius supposed – that Felix Felicis must be wearing off. The reception was winding down, so Bilius took his leave, and made a note to think of himself as Bilius as often as possible so there would be no mix-ups when he wasn’t under the influence of good luck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to include the Weasley family dinner in this chapter, but I decided against it. That will be next chapter, and there'll be a bit of actual plot. From here on out George will refer to himself as Bilius, by the way.


End file.
